Section

Brain and mind

7 articles

Health and medicineBrain and mind

Can a routine prescription become a clue to possible Alzheimer's protection?

Older adults leave long trails of medical codes in insurance records: diagnoses, procedures, prescriptions, and the months between them. Those trails can hide patterns that are hard to see by eye, especially when a treatment might be linked to a later decline in memory or thinking. The question is whether routine claims data can be turned into a practical way to spot such patterns before they become testable drug ideas.

September 27, 2026

Food and nutritionBrain and mind

People over 60 with diets rich in vegetables and fruits had lower depressive symptoms

After sixty, low mood can settle in quietly. Some foods may help the brain resist that weight, while others may do little or even work against it. This piece follows the evidence from plant compounds to daily meals, and asks what is realistic for an older adult who wants to protect their mood without adding another pill.

September 26, 2026

Health and medicineBrain and mind

Sleep trouble may be part of the early autism picture that parents should notice

In many homes, a child's bedtime is treated as a routine to manage rather than a sign to read. For preschoolers with autism, that routine can look different from the start: nights may begin later, end later, and be broken more often. The question is whether those patterns are visible early enough to matter.

September 26, 2026

Health and medicineBrain and mind

Lowering a Parkinson’s protein in rats improved smell and exploration while dopamine stayed intact

A protein linked to Parkinson’s disease can build up in specific brain regions long before movement problems appear. Scientists used a rat model that carries the human gene for this protein and tested whether reducing it early could change behavior, signaling, and regional brain chemistry.

September 19, 2026

Health and medicineBrain and mind

Stress leaves a clear mark in your breathing, but amusement does not

A short recording of your breathing can carry more than rate and depth. Sixty-second breath traces from a public dataset, recorded while people sat at baseline, felt stress, amused themselves, or meditated, are checked for subtle timing, rhythm, and waveform patterns that might separate those states without asking anyone how they felt.

September 16, 2026

Health and medicineTechnology and computingBrain and mind

Two Views of the Brain Help Computers Spot Tiny Metastases More Accurately

Brain metastases can range from large, obvious masses to specks barely visible in a 3D MRI scan. A computer system must find every one of them while avoiding false alarms that could send patients toward unnecessary treatment. One way to test whether scale matters is to give the same type of computer model two different views of the brain: a wide view with more context and a tighter view where small lesions occupy more space.

September 15, 2026

Technology and computingBrain and mind

Could Everyday AI Use Quietly Rewire How Whole Populations Think?

A new theoretical model treats large language models less as software and more as a cultural habit that can spread through societies. It asks whether the convenience of asking an AI to read, write, reason, or check work could change not just individual productivity but the collective capacity for unaided thinking. The framework borrows ideas from epidemic spread, cultural evolution, and cognitive offloading to explore how adoption, dependence, autonomy, and recovery might interact across a population.

September 13, 2026